How can I strip a dark stain from a table?

Question

Has any one in the Home Talk community ever stripped a piece of furniture from the Bombay Store. I have a table that is stained with a very dark cherry stain. I know I could sand the finish off and stain it black but I might want to get it back to a natural colored wood/verneer.

Emy Flint | Semigloss Design · Answer

Sanding is the best way to remove stain. Start with 80 grit and when most of the stain is gone, use 120 grit, then eventually 220 grit. This makes the wood super smooth for whatever finish you choose.

Gk · Answer

You need to use a stripper to get most of the stain and any other clear finish off before you do any sanding. CitriStrip works well but a little more slowly than the old traditional strippers. KleanStrip is a more traditional stripper that works faster. You can apply it with steel wool in the direction of the grain and then use clean steel wool to remove the gunk. I like the Klean Strip better than the CitriStrip but you need to work in a very well ventilated area and wear gloves. If your table has veener on the top the veener is probably be very thin. You don't want to have to do much sanding on veener because you can sand right through it and ruin it if you get too carried away with sanding. Steel wool may be a better option.

K. Rupp · Answer

Emy is right....stripper doesn't take all the stain off at all!!! You will definitely want to start with the lower number sanding grit and work your way up. I just did a piece and started with 180 because I knew that I wanted to paint it. But the stain was still very deep in the wood. I got a lot of the stain off but still if you want natural wood you will have to take a lot of the wood off and that will be a very coarse grit like Emy said. 80 or lower. The only problem will be is if you have details in your furniture piece, you will be sanding so much you don't want to take too many of the details off so you will have to be careful!

You need some specialty sanding materials. Sanding tools that can get into really tiny crevices can be purchased at a woodworking store like woodcraft and rockler. Woodcraft is where I got mine. You can buy sanding blocks with wedges and points to get into those hard to reach areas. There are even sanding cords you can buy to go around crevices of spindles etc. These are a few that I have that work great!!!!: